Cole Summer Writers Institute 2009

I love summer. The sun, the surf, the Cole Summer Writers Institute. It's all good.

For four years now I have been running a summer workshop for adolescent writers based out of my school. This year I have eight kids, although in years past I've had as many as fifteen (and as few as five), and they are wonderful! So creative, so energetic; they get me thinking again about writing (thank God!). It has been so long since I actually thought about writing- I'm not even talking about a full blown story here; I'm talking about a sketch or paragraph or a few sundry lines of prose- and each time I do rekindle the desire it feels like prying open a window that has been painted shut. It's scary, in some ways, to think about pulling up the tightly shut sills of my creativity, though, because I know how savage the rush of desire to write will be once I open the window. Yeah, I know, melodramatic, but not untrue. TO put it prosaically, I'll be torn to write and to ignore all other things. Which I would do.

So much for vacuuming and cutting the lawn.

But I have to accept the need to write because it's a part of me. I have to write when the calling comes and I can safely do it (read this part as the disclaimer that says I won't lose my job because I shirked my responsibilities it lieu of writing). And that is ultimately the struggle, to write when you can for as long as you can and damn the consequences. Sacrifice. Risk. Summer sun. Summer writing. It's all good again.